Dallas Stars Blog

Observations from a 5-3 loss

Marty Turco was fantastic. The two goals where defensive coverage left players all alone in front? What do you do there? The other two? Meh. One was a sick deflection and one bounced in off of two Stars players before going in.

The Stars were out-shot in every period. 16-9 in the first when they should have learned their lesson from Washington and come out with their best period of the road trip. 15-5 in the second when a 3-3 game was up for grabs. 12-6 in the third when they should have been desperately trying to tie the game and reminding each other what they did inb Washington.

Ouch. That was 0-for-3 in reading the motivation of the situation.

Here’s Steve Ott on what it was like to be Turco.

“I mean, if there’s a 4-by-8 piece of plywood in there and you get that many shots on it, one or five are going to go through eventually,” center Steve Ott said. “Marty played awesome. He’s playing his heart out for us, and we have to be better.”

Marc Crawford was disappointed that his skilled players were dangling too much. he said Jamie Benn and James Neal were playing a simple, straight forward game, but that veterans like Brad Richards and Mike Ribeiro were too hully-gully.

“They were careless with the puck,” Crawford said. “We got all of our goals from simple plays and taking it to the net, but then, our skilled forwards tried to make complicated plays, they turned over pucks, and they really let us down. There was no reason for it.”

Richards carried the puck in on a three-on-three and tried to send a blind behind-the-back pass from the wing into the slot, and that infuriated Crawford. Richards actually had pretty good numbers. He had an assist, was plus-1, was credited with one giveaway and won 10-of-14 faceoffs.

Ribeiro and Brenden Morrow each were minus-3.

Tyler Myers was fascinating for Buffalo. How a 6-8 kid can skate like that is amazing. How a 20-year-old can make those decisions on defense is incredible. he had a goal and three assists, and he was clearly the best player on the ice.

They said he has been in a slump the last 10 games, but the player we saw Wednesday is the best rookie in the league by a mile. We’ve seen a lot of Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, and he was better than any game we have seen Doughty play.

If you haven’t read the story, he was born in Houston and moved to Calgary when he was 10. He got into hockey when he was 6 because his dad took him to a Houston Aeros game.

Anyway, back to the Stars carnage. They are now 1-4-0 since the Olympic Break and are five points out of eighth place in the West.

They play their next six at home, and they have to win most of them.

Here’s Ott again:

“It’s our season, quite frankly. There are 12 points there, huge points, so we either come out and we’re strong at home and we continue to have a good push right to the end, or if we don’t get the ship pointed in the right direction on this homestand, then we might as well call it a season.”

More fun quotes:

“If one guy breaks down, it all breaks down,” said Steve Ott, who scored in the wacky first period. “I think that’s what’s it’s been more of. The defensive responsibility of guys to commit to their position and to their play, I think that’s where it’s resulting in an awful lot of shots in the last little while. I think if there’s a 4X8 foot piece of plywood in there, if they get that many shots on it, one of them is going to go through it eventually because it’s going to break down. Marty’s played awesome, and he’s playing his heart out for us.”

Jamie Benn:

“Both teams had their chances in the first period, and it was run-n-gun,” Benn said. “They just took advantage of everything in the second. I don’t think we tested (Miller) enough, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Marty Turco:

“Every game is just so vital. We’re not getting any farther behind, but we just have to win to stay afloat, and then we need a little bit of help from some other teams. But we still think our destiny is in our control if we win all our games. If we can’t do that, we have to go to the next one.”

Marc Crawford:

“We were guilty of turning over a few too many pucks and trying to make the game a little bit more complicated than it needed to be. You win games at this time by playing mentally tough and making sure that you don’t over-complicate your game. We were guilty of not doing that.”